


If I Could Walk Away From Me

by hopeless_eccentric



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Overuse Injuries, Peter Nureyev Needs a Hug, Self-Destructive Behavior, Self-Hatred, and working through it!, just a bit though this is also mostly cuddling, minor injury, nureyev-typical ageism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-13 18:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28908108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: In general, the majority of the rules of thieving weren’t terrible advice. Nureyev didn’t necessarily suffer because phrases such as “an underprepared thief is a dead thief” and “your plan B is only as good as your plan C” and “always be aware of your body at all times” whizzed around his head with all their sage advice.Some days, however, he wished he could pry that last rule of thieving off of his brain altogether.
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Comments: 18
Kudos: 115





	If I Could Walk Away From Me

**Author's Note:**

> hey all!! this one's a bit heavy, so make sure to keep an eye on the content warnings!!
> 
> Content warnings for minor injuries, discussion of self-destructive workout habits, nureyev-typical ageism, self-hatred

Peter Nureyev had known his fair share of first rules of thieving. They floated past his ears and bounced around his head and sometimes guided his hands before he could even think to question himself.

In general, the majority weren’t terrible advice. He didn’t necessarily suffer because phrases such as “an underprepared thief is a dead thief” and “your plan B is only as good as your plan C” and “always be aware of your body at all times” whizzed around his head with all their sage advice.

Some days, however, he wished he could pry that last rule of thieving off of his brain altogether.

Peter Nureyev knew he held his tension in his hips, or hip flexors, if he was being more specific. His left leg was just barely longer than the right, putting his center of gravity just an inch or two off kilter and giving him enough of a curve to his spine to be painless, yet haunt the back of his mind with the knowledge that his posture would never be precise. He had better stability in his left leg and better strength in his right for as much as he had attempted to balance the matter out.

He had a mental medical history long enough to fill an encyclopedia and detailed enough that it took up a filing cabinet of its own, cataloging twinges in his hamstrings from overstretching and unexplained stiffness in joints and every time he sat up a little straighter and his spine audibly cracked in front of the crew. He had his remedies and workarounds and modified stretches and exercises filed in their neat little drawers, ready to be pried out with disgusted hands and cast upon the floor at a moment’s notice.

Years ago, Nureyev had expected the matter to be unchanging. If his form was slightly wrong on an exercise or he got lost in thought halfway through a stretch, the amount of over-the-counter pain medication or minutes of icing or days of slightly gentler exercise were readily available and committed to memory.

Sensibly, he knew time would worsen his need for recovery. That didn’t make it sting any less when a twinge in the ankle began to mean two days without heels, rather than one, and a bad enough ache in one of his hips could ruin any attempt at a leg workout for the remainder of the week.

It was foolish to think time would spare his body just because it had claimed his face. Then again, there had always been a self-sabotaging optimistic streak in him, no matter how many times he tried to kill it.

When he awoke, the grimace on his lips and the warm arm around his waist both already trying to coax him back to sleep, Nureyev hung his head and dragged out his catalogue once more.

There was a cramp in his left arch, with a likely cause of putting too much weight on his toes when overestimating his squat weight the day prior. He didn’t doubt his calves stung for the same reason, one pleasantly sore and the other near worrisome. He would likely need to extend one leg to make his knee crack before he stood if he wanted to stay standing, and he had nearly made it up to his thigh in terms of exhausted, step-by-step planning when Juno rolled over and buried his head in the crook of Nureyev’s neck.

“Quit thinking so loud,” Juno murmured.

“My dear detective,” Nureyev chuckled, noting another twinge when his wrist cracked on the way up to cradle Juno’s head. At least that ache wouldn’t cause him all that much trouble. “How on earth could I possibly be doing such a thing?”

“You get all tense and stuff,” Juno mumbled into Nureyev’s shirt. “It’s like cuddling with a two by four.”

“Love, I assure you, I am much longer than that,” Nureyev laughed.

“I don’t think you know what that means,” Juno accused, though his voice was so sleepy Nureyev almost let it slide.

“Love,” he started.

“You need to exhale or something,” Juno continued complaining. “I can count if you want me to count.”

“I can breathe on my own, thank you,” Nureyev huffed.

“There you go,” Juno snorted. “Big breath out.”

“You’re far too clever for your own good sometimes.”

“Love you too,” Juno teased.

Nureyev’s fond smile lasted for exactly as long as Juno’s eyes remained open.

It was pathetic enough to stress over such pains that accompanied an aging body without waking someone who desperately needed sleep. However, Nureyev could justify that matter with enough favors and compliments and whatever else he could convince himself made up for such a slight. 

He couldn’t justify wearing his stress on his sleeve as easily.

He didn’t have it in him to finish memorizing the parts of his body that ached, their reasons, and whatever methods he had to get the pain to be quiet enough to muddle his way through until it disappeared of its own accord. Instead, his focus was repurposed on forcing his shoulders down until he felt a stretch and trying his best to extend every limb, unsure whether his joints or self esteem was cracking in the process.

He could make himself deal with the matter quietly. He had done so for the majority of his life, after all.

However, the majority of his life wasn’t spent nursing aches and jolted joints and a useless, time-consuming body that wore age pitifully where others wore it with grace.

“Nureyev,” Juno groaned into his shoulder.

Nureyev responded with a light hum, as if he had merely been mulling over the weather.

“Are you okay?” Juno asked upon raising his head.

“I’m with you, my love,” Nureyev chuckled. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

His easy smile fell the moment he saw that it had not been reciprocated.

“You wanna talk about something?”

“No,” Nureyev responded far too quickly, wincing. “My apologies, I merely meant—”

“Nureyev,” Juno broke him off. “I just woke up. I don’t have the energy to drag a confession out of you, so if there’s something you need to get off your chest, just say it.”

“If you don’t have the energy for that, I don’t see why I should keep you awake burdening you with issues I should be perfectly able to cope with on my own,” Nureyev returned before he could stop himself, voice almost as tense as the part of his back that had seemingly turned to stone overnight.

“Yeah, well I’m curious or whatever,” Juno huffed out as he flopped back onto the mattress at Nureyev’s side, though not without squeezing his hand first. “Don’t make me do the whole good cop bad cop thing before nine. I don’t do interrogations in the single digits.”

Nureyev cracked a smile at that. He would have chastised himself for letting it come out lopsided, but then again, Juno’s face always went a little soft when Peter Nureyev smiled instead of Peter Ransom.

“I love you,” he murmured across the pillow, a space that didn’t stay a space for long when Juno leaned forward to press a kiss to his hairline.

“Is that what’s stressing you out?” Juno snorted.

“Love,” Nureyev pretended to be aghast. Juno laughed, though he made no attempt to continue carrying the light mood Nureyev had been grasping at with useless, sore-wristed hands.

“You don’t have to tell me anything you’re not comfortable with,” Juno started, reaching between them to squeeze his hand. Perhaps he was a fool, but Nureyev had to admit it made him feel better. “But if you wanna take this as an opportunity not to bottle something up, I’m not gonna be mad just ‘cause I’m not getting my beauty sleep or whatever.”

Nureyev took a deep breath. He added a sore neck to an endless list of bodily failings and made a pathetic mental note to get more sleep, for there were not enough hours in the day to both keep his job and take care of such matters.

“I’m just sore, my dear,” he explained, the words slow and hand picked.

He had expected, at best, questioning, and at worst, a laugh. Juno merely raised an eyebrow and moved his thumb to rub against a tender spot in Nureyev’s wrist.

“Regular sore or bad sore?”

Nureyev grimaced.

“Nothing that shouldn’t heal itself eventually, I just—” he shook his head. “My apologies. I shouldn’t waste your time with it.”

“I can make time for you.”

“What did I ever do to deserve you?” Nureyev felt himself smile, faltering a little at a twinge from his hand.

“Too much?”

“Just a bit lighter, thank you,” Peter clarified.

“Better?” Juno paused to ask, only continuing when Nureyev had nodded. “You need anywhere else?”

“I suppose that’s just the problem, isn’t it?” Nureyev sighed. “I should be able to wake up for two morning workouts in a row. It hasn’t ever been a problem before, and I don’t see why I should be so utterly incapacitated now.”

“Take a day off,” Juno shrugged.

“What?”

“I mean, if it hurts, don’t make it worse, right?” He elaborated, thumbs working their way up his forearm into the muscles knife exercises had fatigued. “If you wanna keep working out, it’s probably better not to beat yourself to death.”

“Juno, we have a heist in three days,” Nureyev balked.

“That’s my point. You don’t want to get hurt before then,” Juno continued, voice light and easy as if he were explaining how to tie a shoelace.

“Exactly,” Nureyev pressed. “If I’m going to get hurt, it’s best to do it now.”

“What?”

“Well, with my standard scheduling, I have a workout the day of the heist, so I need to reschedule that one earlier. However, if I merely put it the day before, I would likely be sore the day of the heist. I can only schedule it back to back with my previous workout. Then I’ll need a recovery day for the overuse, or else I run the risk of performing under my peak ability.”

Juno blinked.

“Love, why are you staring at me like I’ve grown a second head? It’s a simple matter of—”

“So you’re just expecting to get hurt?”

Nureyev swallowed.

“Well, when you phrase it like that, it sounds terrible,” he huffed. “There’s a certain amount of recovery to be expected, especially with my condition today. I might modify a few exercises, but I don’t doubt I’ll be needing the entire time to recover.”

“Or you could skip a day.”

“Juno, now is hardly the time to be joking—”

“I’m serious,” he returned, reaching back down to squeeze Nureyev’s hand. “Nureyev, when was the last time you took a day off?”

“I’ve only ever rescheduled before,” he replied, voice feeling far too small for its own good. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I don’t see what good taking a day off is going to do, especially with all the trouble I’ve had to go to just to maintain—”

Whatever pathetic excuse was going to spring from his lips next fell away when Juno’s hand came to rest upon his cheek, the thumb running the familiar line of his cheekbone and stalling for a moment on a freckle Nureyev had always hated.

“It’s not wrong to wanna go to the gym,” Juno started easily. “Hell, I’m in there a couple days of the week too, I’m just not weird enough to go in the morning.”

“Dear—”

“I’m just saying, there are a million other things you could do in the morning to wake yourself up,” Juno cut him off. “Anyway, I just think it makes the most sense in the long run if you take a break until you’re feeling back to normal. Just stretch or something that’ll make you feel good and still trick your brain into thinking you’re preparing for the heist.”

“If I set a precedent of this, who’s to say I’ll lose my resolve altogether and never set foot in there again?” He found himself blurting out.

Juno didn’t seem to find the matter half as dire as he did, but his clever eye still went narrow for a second, and after a moment’s deliberation, he leaned across the space between them and pressed another kiss to Nureyev’s forehead.

“First of all, I don’t think anybody who wakes up that early to work out has to worry about resolve,” Juno chuckled, sweet and soft enough that Nureyev almost managed a smile as well. “Second of all, I think if you can figure out a good hurt day from a bad hurt day, you’ve probably already got an idea of how to look at things from here. If there’s a day you feel like you’ve really gotta get up, hell, you can drag me with you, for all I care.”

“Juno,” he breathed.

“I just don’t want you getting hurt,” Juno continued. “Because if you got an overuse injury from something you could’ve stopped doing at any time, Vespa would probably call you stupid, and I don’t think your self esteem could take that.”

“Love,” Nureyev groaned.

“Really though,” Juno pressed. “If you’re having an off day, you’re having an off day. You should worry about fixing it before it gets worse.”

“I’ve just—” Nureyev started, pausing to clear his throat. “I’ve had far too many off days for my own good recently.”

“Probably because you’ve needed a day off for a while.”

“I meant the last several years, love.”

Juno squeezed his hand.

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he began slowly, though Nureyev stayed silent, for Juno had clearly paused to search for the right words to follow up. “I know I can’t convince you that I still think you’re handsome as all hell, or that it doesn’t even matter what you look like anyway. I know I can’t just reach into your head and organize everything until you like yourself as much as I like you, but if you ever need a hand with any of this, I’m right here, however you need me.”

“I suppose you can’t fix my minor injuries by hand either,” Nureyev returned sourly, for it seemed that was the only part of what Juno had said that he could find it within himself to respond to.

“We can work on it,” Juno pressed.

“We?”

“I don’t know what I can do,” Juno started. “That’s where you come in, I guess. But really, just tell me what you need, and I’ll make time for it. I don’t like seeing you beat yourself up over something you can’t control, so if I can just help with some little part of it, I think that’d make both of us feel a whole lot better.”

He knew Juno thought he was beautiful, from the too-deep wrinkles to the too-grayed roots. He knew Juno would drag him away from the mirror on nights when he wasted far too many minutes prodding his face and trying to remember what it had once looked like, only to hold him closer without asking any questions. He knew, worst of all, that he and Juno would never agree on half the things Juno tried to make him believe every time he whispered sweet nothings into his hair and ran a hand up and down a well muscled arm that somehow, imperceptibly, looked different than it used to, and for that reason alone, was a terrible thing.

And yet, something softened in his chest when Juno smiled at him, soft and sweet and almost pitying.

“You’d be surprised,” Juno returned. “You know, my brother always said I’d make a hell of a geologist if I hadn’t gone into the HCPD.”

Nureyev raised an eyebrow.

“Beg pardon?”

“I’m good at working with rocks,” Juno snorted, doubling into a full blown laugh when Nureyev made an offended noise. “Seriously though, I’ve got most of the day free. If you ever need a masseuse or a gym buddy or anything—”

“Don’t call yourself my gym buddy,” Nureyev returned with a curled lip. Juno only chuckled at that.

“Alright, your gym ‘lover—’”

“Juno Steel, you are lucky I love you,” Nureyev found himself nearly laughing as he sat up and tugged a shirt that had once been Juno’s off before rolling over. “I’m not going to stop you, unless you stop wounding my pride. I’m in enough pain already, you brute.”

“Okay, but do you promise you’ll take the day off?” Juno started, though his words were absentminded as he turned to grab lotion from atop the nightstand.

Nureyev hummed, then groaned his confirmation when Juno’s fingers sunk into his shoulders.

“Jesus Christ,” Juno grimaced.

“That terrible?”

“God, I thought I was joking about the rock thing.”

Nureyev rolled his eyes.

“Just tend to your affairs, my love,” he huffed.

“I’m working on it,” Juno snorted, returning his hands to their slow and gentle work that seemed to pry hours of research bent over a desk off of Nureyev’s shoulder with every touch. He didn’t doubt there would be bruising, but that minor injury, at least, didn’t stay for long enough to be a bother with the heist. “You promise you’re gonna drink water?”

“I’ll drink water,” Nureyev chuckled.

“Do your stretches?”

“Of course, dear.”

“Go to bed early?”

Nureyev sighed.

“Must I?” He all but lamented, even if a laugh lined his voice.

“Or you wanna ‘take our leave’ at seven thirty and miss all of stream night?” Juno snorted.

“Love, I’m not going to make you miss Bad Cops 3,” Nureyev chuckled.

“God, I love you,” Juno audibly grinned.

Nureyev reached a hand up behind him blindly, though Juno had known him long enough to know to squeeze his fingertips for just a moment before his hands got back to their work, melting catalogued pain after catalogued pain away until finally, Nureyev took a deep enough breath to let himself relax.

**Author's Note:**

> man. man :,)
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below or ill tell my mom
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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